Book Descriptions
for The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami and Abigail Halpin
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Indian American Dini and her best friend, Maddie, are two heartbroken eleven-year-olds after learning Dini’s family is moving to India for two years after her mother receives a medical grant to work in the village of Swampnagiri. There’s only one bright spot: Dini and Maddie are huge fans of Dolly Singh, star of their favorite Bollywood movies. Dini thinks she can track Dolly down and meet her, despite Bombay (as all the filmi people call Mumbai) being far from Swampnagiri. Uma Krishnaswami’s lighthearted escapade is plotted like a Bollywood film, meaning the many obstacles that would seem to stand between Dini and Dolly will surely be overcome. There’s plenty of coincidence fueling their eventual encounter in a story that not only follows Dini’s life in India and her ongoing connection with Maddie via email, but also peeks in on the lives of Dolly and a variety of other characters who all have a role to play in Dini and Dolly’s meeting. An over-the-top, movielike happy ending with all the characters’ assorted problems clearing up simultaneously is simply part of the charm of this funny and original novel. (Ages 8–11)
CCBC Choices 2012. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2012. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
Rose petal milk shakes and a world of surprises awaits Dini when her family moves to India in this spirited novel with Bollywood flair.
Eleven-year old Dini loves movies—watching them, reading about them, trying to write her own—especially those oh-so-fabulous Bollywood movies where you don’t need to know the language to get what’s going on. But when her mother reveals some big news, it does not at all jibe with the script Dini had in mind. Her family is moving to India. And not even to Bombay, which is the “center of the filmi universe” (and home to Dini’s all-time most favorite star, Dolly Singh). No, they’re moving to a teeny, tiny town that she can’t even find on a map: Swapnagiri. It means Dream Mountain, a sleepy little place where nothing interesting can happen....
But wait a movie minute! Swapnagiri is full of surprises like rose petal milk shakes, mischievous monkeys, a girl who chirps like a bird, and...could it be…Dolly herself?
Eleven-year old Dini loves movies—watching them, reading about them, trying to write her own—especially those oh-so-fabulous Bollywood movies where you don’t need to know the language to get what’s going on. But when her mother reveals some big news, it does not at all jibe with the script Dini had in mind. Her family is moving to India. And not even to Bombay, which is the “center of the filmi universe” (and home to Dini’s all-time most favorite star, Dolly Singh). No, they’re moving to a teeny, tiny town that she can’t even find on a map: Swapnagiri. It means Dream Mountain, a sleepy little place where nothing interesting can happen....
But wait a movie minute! Swapnagiri is full of surprises like rose petal milk shakes, mischievous monkeys, a girl who chirps like a bird, and...could it be…Dolly herself?
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.
